James Franco Opens Up About His Breakdown & Addiction to Work

On his breakdown last November: “I really had a moment of crisis. I hit a wall. It was a gradual thing. I hadn’t been in a relationship in a long time and was like, realising how much I was running from feelings and people. And how much of my identity was wrapped up in work. I knew who I was on a movie set. But take me away from that and it’s like, oh shit, I have to interact with people outside of the dynamics of a movie set? That’s really scary. But as soon as I took a step back and stopped working, it was like, holy shit. All the feelings flooded in and it was like this is what I was running from. This is what I was using work to hide from. This is why I had to occupy myself every minute of the day, 24 hours a day. Because I was running, running from emotions and being vulnerable and being around people. Being myself.”

On addiction to work: “I’ve never done heroin in my life, but I imagine if you get off heroin, people talk about facing reality, all these feelings coming back. Whether you know it or not, you want to bury them with the drug. Being a workaholic means you’re addicted to something. And what’s underneath addiction? It’s about hiding from fear, from pain, it’s doing something to make yourself feel better. That’s exactly what I was doing and I had to really adjust my relationship to work. It’s really hard. I’m sure, like anything you’re addicted to, letting that go is difficult because it’s a coping mechanism to make you feel good. It is so hard to wake up to [addiction]. It’s so hard to see it. I thought I was living the life I always wanted to live. When I finally did wake up, I was completely isolated, emotionally, from everyone around me. The thing about work addiction is our culture supports it… We reward hard work and success. But it can really mask addictive, escapist behaviour.”

On perceived success: “I actually couldn’t enjoy my success. I was nominated for an Oscar, I was working with all my heroes. All the dreams I’d had as a young man had come true. And I still couldn’t enjoy it. It was never going to be enough.”